1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a toll-ticket issuing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to an automatic toll-ticket issuing apparatus which is installed at an entrance gate of a toll-road or expressway, and which continues to issue toll-tickets to vehicles entering the road or expressway without discontinuing the ticket issuing operation.
2. Related Art
Typically, in a toll-road or expressway where a toll gate is installed at an entrance or at an outlet of the expressway, an automatic toll-ticket issuing apparatus is installed at the toll gate, and issues a toll-ticket to vehicles entering the expressway in order to collect a toll from every vehicle passing through the expressway.
A problem arises in such automatic toll-ticket apparatus in that such apparatus are typically provided with only a single cassette for stacking or storing the toll-tickets. When the stack of tickets runs out, the corresponding entrance lane of the toll gate is blocked until the empty ticket cassette is unloaded from the ticket container and is refilled with new tickets. Even if a spare cassette fully filled with new tickets is held and reserved, and then substituted for the empty cassette, there is a delay in resuming continuous discharge of the tickets.
Therefore, three is a need for the development of an automatic toll-ticket issuing apparatus which enables toll-tickets to be continuously issued, even when an initial stack of tickets runs out.